


Nothing Lasts Forever

by VictoriaPyrrhi



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Friendship is Magic, Gen, Implied Relationships, Multi, Slice of Life, implied threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5425586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaPyrrhi/pseuds/VictoriaPyrrhi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing is the same at the Haus after graduation. Eric knew it wouldn't be, but he didn't expect it to leave him feeling like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Lasts Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnguishofMyLove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnguishofMyLove/gifts).



> Merry holidays, @AnguishofMyLove! I wanted to focus on Bitty and Lardo supporting each other--I think this ends up being a little angsty and a little fluffy, and I hope you enjoy it <3

***

The Haus isn’t the same after Jack and Shitty graduate. It’s not like Eric expected it to be the same. He’d been through one graduation already, he knew the drill. He  knew it was going to be a big change, of course it was. It doesn’t take him long to realize that he wasn’t prepared at all. It’s a hundred little things, like not being able to knock on Jack’s door and have him answer with that slow smile he’d started giving Eric -- like not finding Shitty in various states of undress and toked around the Haus.

 

It’s the first morning he’s back in the Haus, late summer sun just rising. Eric’s out of his bed and shoving his feet into his sneakers by rote, and it isn’t until he’s shutting the front door that he has to stop. It feels like he has to catch his breath, and he hasn’t even started running yet. For a long moment, he thinks about turning around and going back inside, of starting the coffee pot and a round of pancakes for Chowder and Dex, who arrived yesterday  so excited to move in, or better yet of jogging his way back upstairs and passing back out face first in his bed. 

 

Instead, he starts his music and lets his feet carry him out onto the familiar route. There’s no Jack keeping pace with him, and that’s weird in a way that he doesn’t want to examine. He makes up for it by snapping a picture halfway through and sending it to Jack. He doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t have to. 

 

He’s back in the kitchen, breathing heavily, but not as heavily as he had this time last year, when his phone chimes. It’s a picture of a weight room, and Eric catches a glimpse of Jack’s dark hair and pale thighs in the room’s mirror. He doesn’t know if it’s intentional or not, so he doesn’t think about it.

 

As much as things have changed, there are still some things that remain consistent. Nursey gets in around lunch time, Rans and Holster roll in mid-afternoon, and suddenly the Haus is filled again. His Frogs (and Eric will always consider them  his Frogs ) are all explosive noise and motion. Chowder in particular bounces between Nursey and Dex, chattering animatedly about his summer and his training and California. Eric is in the middle of making a whole mess of grilled cheese, and he lets the sound wash over him, soothing in its exuberance. Nursey chimes in occasionally, leaning forward on the table and looking genuinely interested; Dex is unusually quiet, but still seems engaged. 

 

He doesn’t ask; if Dex wants to talk, Eric’s always got an ear open and a pie ready. That hasn’t changed. Rans and Holster finish unpacking; Eric can hear them trampling down the stairs and they slide into the kitchen and the conversation with ease. Eric watches his stack of grilled cheese start to disappear and feels something settle in his chest a little bit. Rans grabs him as he moves from stove to table and wrestles him into a chair between him and Holster with a move that’s part WWE and part hug.

 

“Eat, Bits,” he says, squeezing his shoulders a little.

 

It’s not the same, but it doesn’t have to be. 

 

***

 

Lardo doesn’t text him when she gets into town; he finds out that she’s back by accident, jogging past Annie’s. She’s settled herself into a booth and is alone, giant aviators still on and wearing a shirt that Eric’s 99% sure he recognizes as  not hers . Eric wants to go in and sit down with her, talk with her, confront her. She’s got her head down, chin resting on her palm, staring into a sketchbook, and Eric continues on his run. 

 

She’s sitting on the front porch the next morning when he leaves for his run, and it’s enough of a surprise that he almost trips down the stairs. 

 

“ Gracious you about scared me into Tuesday,” he hisses, and it comes out sharper than he’d meant it to.

 

“Sorry, Bits,” she says. There’s a world of  stuff in her words that neither of them are really ready to deal with, but Lardo has tennis shoes on and a sweatband that Eric  knows used to be Shitty’s.

 

“Think you can keep up?” he asks. Lardo gives him a small smile.

 

“Go easy on me, tiger.” About halfway through, Eric figures that maybe the sweatband is Lardo’s and Shitty’d just been borrowing it.

 

After that, things seem to fall into a new sort of normalcy. Classes start and he texts Jack and runs and listens to Dex and Nursey ramp up their arguments -- sometimes the same ones he’s been hearing since they actually  were  Frogs. Chowder decides in mid-September that he’s going to get really serious about his nutrition, and he’s so darn earnest about it that Eric doesn’t mind dusting off recipes he’d perfected last year. He texts Jack a picture of his favorite dish and says  Chowder keeps yelling about protein. I blame you, Mr. Zimmerman!

 

He gets back a picture of a steak that has to be the size of Eric’s head.

 

Lardo seems to spend more time in the Haus than she does in her own dorm. She gets a couple of skeptical looks when the incoming Frogs drop by, and he wonders if it’s going to be a problem with them, if this is the year that someone’s going to be a sexist jerk and Eric’s going to have to buck up and take care of it. He knows that Lardo can hold her own, that she doesn’t have to prove herself to anyone, least of all a bunch of baby hockey players, but Eric doesn’t want her to have to, doesn’t want her last year with them to be tainted in any way. 

 

He can see the look on Ziggy’s face the night of their first Haus party, a mix between Rans’  I’m gonna hook up face and that constipated look that Dex gets sometimes, and he just  knows something rude is about to come out of the boy’s mouth and they’re going to be down a forward because if Holster or Rans don’t get to him first, Eric might. 

 

Eric’s got his arms crossed, pulling himself up as tall as he can be, but Lardo beats him to it. “Think carefully, kid,” she says. And then she turns and shouts, “Who wants to take on the Beer Pong  King ?”

 

That appears to be the end of it, and Eric knows that he was dumb to worry. Lardo  is the team, as much as any of them are. She finds him later, sitting on his bed and staring at his phone. He’s kind of got the spins, but when she nods at the window, Eric gets up and follows her out onto the roof. It’s not really  their spot. Eric tends to think of it as Lardo and Shitty’s spot, and occasionally as his and Jack’s spot (when he lets himself think about it), but they settle on the roof, still giving off a little heat from the day and he thinks that maybe for now, it could be.

 

“Thanks,” she says, leaning into him a bit. Her leg is warm where it rests against his, and he thinks that they might be wearing the same pair of shorts. 

 

“I know you didn’t need it,” Eric says because he does know, and he worries that maybe he stepped over a line. 

 

“You’re right, I didn’t. But I appreciate it.” They sit in silence for a long while, until she finally says, “I’m going to need to find a new beer pong partner.”

 

“Oh lord, Lardo you know how bad I am at beer pong!”

 

She grins, “Yeah, but you know how good I am. I think I can train you up.”

 

“I don’t think my liver can handle you training me up,” he mumbles, and Lardo’s laugh is low but genuine. He hasn’t heard it a lot this year. He lets his head thunk over onto Lardo’s shoulder. He’s still got the spins, and it’s a little uncomfortable, but it still feels good, feels right. “It’s harder than I thought it’d be,” he murmurs finally. 

 

Lardo’s quiet for so long that Eric’s almost drifted off, convinced that she hadn’t heard him. 

 

“I know, Bits, I know. But it’s ok, yeah? You’ve still got Rans and Holster here. And all your Frogs.” She brushes her fingers through his hair and he sighs a little.

 

“Yeah, but I think.” He thinks he’s too drunk for this conversation. Or maybe he’s just drunk enough. He thinks about his phone, filled with pictures he’s sent and received; he thinks of Lardo’s sweatband and the series of shirts that aren’t hers. “I  think ,” he says, “you’re the only one who understands.”

 

She sighs a little, and he shifts with the moment. “Yeah, I think I might be.”

  
It’s not the same, but it doesn’t have to be, he tells himself. This is the new normal, and it’s weird, but he can get used to it.  They can get used to it. 


End file.
